Conventional vacuum cleaners perform a cleaning operations by drawing in air containing contaminants found on a surface to be cleaned. A typical vacuum cleaner includes a vacuum cleaner body having a vacuum generator therein, a suction port assembly to draw in contaminated air on the surface to be cleaned by using suction generated by the vacuum generator, and a dust collecting device that separates contaminants from air. Some conventional vacuum cleaners use a cyclone dust collecting device which centrifugally separates and collects the contaminants from the drawn in air.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional upright-type vacuum cleaner 100 includes a cleaner body 110 and a cyclone dust collecting device 180. The cleaner body 110 has a the vacuum generator 130 inside and a dust collecting chamber 140 formed in an upper portion of the vacuum generator 130, with the cyclone dust collecting device 180 being detachably mounted thereon. The dust collecting chamber 140 is in fluid communication with a suction port assembly 120 through a first air inlet path 160. The vacuum generator 130 is in fluid communication with the dust collecting chamber 140 through a second air inlet path 170. Each air inlet path 160 and 170 is connected to an upper end of the dust collecting chamber 140, respectively, and connected to an upper end portion of the cyclone dust collecting device 180 when the cyclone dust collecting device 180 is mounted on the dust collecting chamber 140.
A filter member 191 is disposed in the second air inlet path 170 to the filter dust contained in the air discharged from the cyclone dust collecting device 180. The filter member 191 is detachably installed in a filtering chamber 190 formed in cleaner body 110 so that the filter member 191 is interposed between the second air inlet path 170 and the vacuum generator 130, separately from the cyclone dust collecting device 180.
The second air inlet path 170 of the vacuum cleaner 100 is connected to the vacuum generator 130 in a roundabout pattern along a side and a bottom of the cyclone dust collecting device 180, through which air discharged from the upper end of the the cyclone dust collecting device 180 flows. Hence, the cleaner body 110 is bulky and requires a complicated manufacturing process.
In addition, it is inconvenient to support the cyclone dust collecting device 180 and the filter member 191 separately.